This could well be my WebThing Of The Week: Ships, a ship simulator based on the Google Earth browser plugin. That normally wouldn’t seem too exciting – not least because it’s a crude proof-of-concept rather than any kind of workable game – but it’s got an airship in it! And I can totally fly around the world in real-time in an airship. At last, my dreams are partially realised.

Absolutely. It doesn’t even have to reject the standards of contemporary action games, just do it with a new aesthetic: well-dressed Zeppelin Marines (top hat and blunderbuss) plummeting to earth in brass dropships to attack the psychic legionnaires of the squid-people. The design document writes itself.

Edit: Brass dropships for the win! This is definitely the best idea RPS has produced since SIMS extra-generational dating. Well done, sir.
The Airship Adventures game does sound awesome, but it would go over like a lead League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Extremely disappointing at first, only to be resurrected as a cult classic. Somebody get Derek Smart on the line. Everyone deserves a third chance.
Meanwhile, I’ll need to figure out the admin password in order to play this Ships “game.”

And I’ve always been a fan of airships. After all, that’s why Laputa is one of my favourite films, at least the 80’s Redline dubs version shown on ITV that was actually really good, as opposed to all the other dubs which were horrible. The Disney one was probably the worst, as it sapped the darker undertones out of the film and robbed the characters of any life they had. You kids who aren’t old enough to have seen and enjoyed the 80’s TV version, do yourself a favour and pick it up. The redline dubs version of Laputa can usually be found on eBay. But I digress, sorry…

Airships make everything better. I’d say that the troops should be Skaven-like Rat people too, which would fit a steampunk London setting.

And Jim’s going to hate me for this because it really is a brilliant idea and no one’s ever going to make it, you’ll see.

Now consider the Manned Cloud airship, but not just one of them, two of them, they’re damaged, they’re on fire, and they’re plummeting to Earth, Hindenburg style. There are gangplanks running between them, which are very easy to fall off of, and to one’s doom.

Then we make it a TF2 capture-the-briefcase map! So we have two teams running back and forth between completely trashed modern Zeppelins. Then there’ll be the clever buggers who’ll find their way up into the framework of the balloon to snipe and setup turrets, but they’ll have to be careful that there’re no Pyros around, or it’s firey doom for everyone!

Actually that’s not a bad idea. I once created a Star Wars map for the original TF that was two Corellian Corvettes side by side trying to destroy each other with boarding actions. And when I say ‘created’ I mean ‘half finished before discovering the poly count of being able to see a whole, life-sized Corellian Corvette whilst you were on the way to it made the thing largely unplayable’.

Such a shame, too, I had so many great ideas for people being blown out of airlocks to travel between the two, and shuttles that had timed departures for rapid transit etc etc.

But this idea of mine will never get created, an FPS map set inside a creative, modern setting? It’ll never happen. FPS developers, players, and map creators like playing it horribly safe, and have for years.

But I would be very, very happy for someone to prove me wrong.

Frankly, I’d love that as a TF2 map. TF2 needs maps which are both less safe and more interesting.